The Serpent’s Tale

Bit of fire’d warm they both up, get ’em ready for hell.” He turned to wag his finger at Eleanor. “I’m a simple Gloucestershire man, as you know, and, Sweet Mary save me, a sinner, too, but I love my God, and I love my queen with all my soul, and I’m for putting their enemies to the torch.” He spat on Rosamund’s hair. “That’s the Abbot of Eynsham’s opinion of you, madam.”

The visitor had caused Montignard to stand up. He was busily and jealously-and uselessly-trying to gain the queen’s attention by urging her to eat. Eynsham, a man built more for tossing bales of hay than for shepherding monastic sheep, dominated the room, taking the breath out of it with the power of his body and voice, filling it with West Country earthiness and accent.

Bucolic he might have been, but everything he wore was of expensive and exquisite clerical taste, though the pectoral cross that had swung from his neck as he bent to the queen was overdone-a chunk of dull gold that could have battered a door in.

He’d taken years off Eleanor; she was loving it. Apart from the egregious Montignard, her courtiers had been too weary from traveling to make much fuss over her escape from death.

Or my part in it, Adelia thought, suddenly sour. Her hand was hurting.

“Bad news, though, my glory,” the abbot said.

Eleanor’s face changed. “It’s Young Henry. Where is he?”

“Oh, he’s right enough. But the chase was snappin’ at our heels all the way from Chinon, so the Young King, well, he decides to make for Paris ’stead of yere.”

Suddenly blind, the queen fumbled for the arm of her chair and sank into it.

“Now, now, it’s not as bad as that,” the abbot said, his voice deep, “but you know your lad, he never did take to England-said the wine was piss.”

“What are we to do? What are we to do?” Eleanor’s eyes were wide and pleading. “The cause is lost. Almighty God, what are we to do now?”

“There, there.” The abbot knelt beside her, taking her hands in his. “Nothing’s lost. And Schwyz here, we’ve been speaking together, and he reckons it’s all to the good. Don’t ee, Schwyz?”

At his urging, Schwyz nodded.

“See? And Schwyz do know what he’s about. Not much to look at, I grant, but a fine tactician. For here’s the good news.” Eleanor’s hands were lifted and hammered against her knees. “You hear me, my glory? Listen to me. Hear what our commander Jesus have done for us-He’ve brought the King of France onto our side. Joined un to Young Henry, yes he has.”

Eleanor’s head came up. “He has? Oh, at last. God be praised.”

“King Louis as ever is. He’ll bring his army into the field to fight alongside the son against the father.”

“God be praised,” Eleanor said again. “Now we have an army.”

The abbot nodded his great head as if watching a child open a present. “A saintly king. Weedy husband he was to you, I’ll grant, but we ain’t marrying him, and God’ll look kindly on his valor now.” He hammered Eleanor’s knees again. “D’you see, woman? Young Henry and Louis’ll raise their banner in France, we’ll raise ours here in England, and together we’ll squeeze Old Henry into submission. Light will prevail against Dark. Twixt us, we’ll net the old eagle and bring un down.”

He was forcing life into Eleanor; her color had come back. “Yes,” she said, “yes. A pronged attack. But have we the men? Here in England, I mean? Schwyz has so few with him.”

“Wolvercote, my beauty. Lord Wolvercote’s camped at Oxford awaiting us with a force a thousand strong.”

“Wolvercote,” repeated Eleanor. “Yes, of course.” Despondency began to leave her as she climbed the ladder of hope the abbot held for her.

“Of course of course. A thousand men. And with you at their head, another ten thousand to join us. All them as the Plantagenet has trampled and beggered, they’ll come flocking from the Midlands. Then we march, and oh what joy in Heaven.”

“Got to get to fuck Oxford first,” Schwyz said, “and quick, for fuck’s sake. It’s going to snow, and we’ll be stuck in this fuck tower like fuck Aunt Sallies. At Woodstock, I told the stupid bitch it couldn’t be defended. Let’s go straight to Oxford, I said. I can defend you there. But she knew better.” His voice rose from basso to falsetto. “Oh, no, Schwyz, the roads are too bad for pursuit, Henry can’t follow us here.” The tone reverted. “Henry fuck can, I know the bastard.”

In a way, it was the strangest moment of the night. Eleanor’s expression, something between doubt and exaltation, didn’t change. Still kneeling by her side, the abbot did not turn round.

Didn’t they hear him?

Did I?

For Adelia had been taken back to the lower Alps of the Graubunden, to which, every year, she and her foster parents had made the long but beautiful journey in order to avoid the heat of a Salerno summer. There, in a villa lent to them by the Bishop of Chur, a grateful patient of Dr. Gershom’s, little Adelia had gone picking herbs and wildflowers with the goatherd’s flaxen-haired children, listening to their chat and that of the adults-all of them unaware that little Adelia could absorb languages like blotting paper.

A strange language it had been, a guttural mixture of Latin and the dialect of the Germanic tribes from which those alpine people were descended.

She’d just heard it again.

Schwyz had spoken in Romansh.

Without looking round, the abbot was giving the queen a loose translation. “Schwyz is saying as how, with your favor on our sleeve, this is a war we’ll win. When he do speak from his heart, he reverts to his own patter, but old Schwyz is your man to his soul.”

“I know he is.” Eleanor smiled at Schwyz. Schwyz nodded back.

“Only he can smell snow, he says, and wants to be at Oxford. An’ I’ll be happier in my bowels to have Wolvercote’s men around us. Can ee manage the journey, sweeting? Not too tired? Then let you go down to the kitchens with Monty and get some hot grub inside ee. It’ll be a cold going.”

“My dear, dear abbot,” Eleanor said fondly, rising, “how we needed your presence. You help us to remember God’s plain goodness; you bring with you the scent of fields and all natural things. You bring us courage.”

“I hope I do, my dear. I hope I do.” As the queen and Montignard disappeared down the stairs, he turned and looked at Adelia, who knew, without knowing how she knew, that he had been aware of her all along. “Who’s this, then?”

Schwyz said, “Some drab of Saint Albans’s. He brought her with him. She was in the room when the madwoman attacked Nelly and managed to trip her up. Nelly thinks she saved her life.” He shrugged. “Maybe she did.”

“Did she now?” Two strides brought the abbot close to Adelia. A surprisingly well-manicured hand went under her chin to tip her head back. “A queen owes you her life, does she, girl?”

Adelia kept her face blank, as blank as the abbot’s, staring into it.

“Lucky, then, aren’t you?” he said.

He took his hand away and turned to leave. “Come on, my lad, let us get this festa stultorum on its way.”

“What about her?” Schywz jerked a thumb toward the writing table.

“Leave her to burn.”

“And her?” The thumb indicated Adelia.

The abbot’s shrug suggested that Adelia could leave or burn as she pleased.

She was left alone in the room. Ward, seeing his chance, came back in and directed his nose at the tray with its unfinished veal pie.

Adelia was listening to Rowley’s voice in her mind. “Civil war…Stephen and Matilda will be nothing to it…the Horsemen of the Apocalypse…I can hear the sound of their hooves.”

They’ve come, Rowley. They’re here. I’ve just seen three of them.

From the writing table came a soft sound as Rosamund’s melting body slithered forward onto it.